{"id":39201,"date":"2025-06-25T08:00:00","date_gmt":"2025-06-25T12:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/?p=39201"},"modified":"2025-06-24T22:59:06","modified_gmt":"2025-06-25T02:59:06","slug":"leon-the-professional-1994-written-directed-by-luc-besson-starring-jean-reno-gary-oldman-natalie-portman-z-view","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/?p=39201","title":{"rendered":"“L\u00e9on: The Professional” (1994) written & directed by Luc Besson; starring Jean Reno, Gary Oldman & Natalie Portman \/ Z-View"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/p>\n

L\u00e9on: The Professional <\/strong><\/em>(1994)<\/p>\n

Director:\u00a0 Luc Besson<\/strong><\/p>\n

Screenplay: Luc Besson<\/strong><\/p>\n

Stars: Jean Reno, Gary Oldman<\/strong>, Natalie Portman, Danny Aiello, Peter Appel, Don Creech, Michael Badalucco, Ellen Greene <\/strong>and Frank Senger<\/strong>.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Tagline:\u00a0 A professional hitman, an innocent witness, a corrupt detective who went too far<\/em><\/p>\n

The Plot…<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

Twelve year old Mathilda is about to walk into her family apartment when she realizes something is wrong.\u00a0 So she walks past the door and down to her neighbor Leon’s home.\u00a0 Leon is hesitant but allows Mathilda in.<\/p>\n

Leon knew Mathilda came from a dysfunctional household.\u00a0 She lived with her little brother, stepmother and father.\u00a0 Leon and Mathilda learn that her dad was working with drug-dealing DEA agents.\u00a0 When the cooked cops discovered that dad was stealing from them, they decided to make an example of him.\u00a0 Mathilda almost walked in as the cops were killing her father, step-mother and even her little brother.<\/p>\n

Mathilda has no one.\u00a0 She begs Leon to take her in.\u00a0 He agrees to let her stay.\u00a0 Mathilda is surprised to learn that her simple-minded neighbor is a professional killer.\u00a0 Mathilda asks Leon to train her.\u00a0 She wants to avenge her little brother.\u00a0 Leon’s apartment contains many weapons.\u00a0 He teaches Mathilda basics about some of them.<\/p>\n

While Leon is on a job, Mathilda gathers some of Leon’s guns.\u00a0 She then leaves him a note and heads out to kill the corrupt cops that murdered her little brother.\u00a0 Leon knows that a little 12 year old girl has no hope of surviving a gun battle with trained cops.<\/p>\n

But he might.<\/p>\n

Thoughts (beware of spoilers)\u2026<\/strong><\/p>\n

Jean Reno came up with the idea to play Leon as mentally slow and emotionally repressed. Reno felt that audiences would then better accept that 12 year old Mathilda was safe living with a grown man.<\/p>\n

The International version contains more scenes of\u00a0 “awkward sexual tension” than the American release.\u00a0 American test audiences did not like the scenes where Mathilda professes to love Leon.\u00a0 Natalie Portman has said that she’s asked more about this film than any of her other performances.\u00a0 She further stated that Mathilda and Leon’s relationship hasn’t aged well.<\/p>\n

Leon<\/em> is Natalie Portman’s feature film debut.<\/p>\n

Keith A. Glascoe played Benny.\u00a0 Glascoe later left acting to become a NY City Fireman. Mr. Glascoe died in the collapse of the World Trade Center towers on Sept. 11, 2001.\u00a0 RIP.<\/p>\n

L\u00e9on: The Professional (1994) <\/strong><\/em>rates 5 of 5 stars<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

L\u00e9on: The Professional (1994) Director:\u00a0 Luc Besson Screenplay: Luc Besson Stars: Jean Reno, Gary Oldman, Natalie Portman, Danny Aiello, Peter<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":912,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[17,51,54,65,74],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-39201","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-celebs","category-crime","category-movies","category-trivia","category-z-view"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39201","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/912"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=39201"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39201\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":39203,"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39201\/revisions\/39203"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=39201"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=39201"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=39201"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}